Drs. John Batchelor, Kristie Abston, and Blaine Lawlor from the University of West Florida won the Runner-Up Award for Best Conceptual Paper at the 2014 SBI Conference in Las Vegas, NV for their paper, “Transformational Leadership: The Antecedent Role of Emotional Intelligence.”

Their paper centers on proposing a link between the four branches of emotional intelligence and transformational leadership and the role time plays in this process. The authors propose that, given time, those skilled at perceiving, using, understanding, and managing emotions will be likely to engage in behaviors consistent with the ideals of transformational leadership. The impetus for this paper came from a casual discussion two of the authors had over lunch one day when discussing how relationships change over time. Dr. Batchelor recalls, “We were speaking about how emotional intelligence should influence transformational leadership but how this relationship does not exist in a vacuum, other factors must be at play. Subsequently, the role of time entered into this discussion and the paper evolved from there.” To read the full paper, visit the 2014 conference proceedings, page 95 at the following link: http://www.smallbusinessinstitute.biz/Resources/Documents/Proceedings/2014%20Proceedings.pdf

Dr. John H. Batchelor is an assistant professor of management at the University of West Florida. He currently teaches undergraduate and MBA classes related to management, human resources, and planning. His research interests include entrepreneurship, meta-analysis, experiential learning, and emotions. He also advises the Student Collaborative Entrepreneurship Organization.

Dr. K. Blaine Lawlor is the director of the University of West Florida's Masters of Business Administration Program.  His research interests lie in the area of strategy and in Organizational Behavior.  He is interested in developing cases and has a strong interest in getting MBA students published by getting them to write cases uses using primary research and getting those cases presented at conferences and eventually published.  He and his MBA students have presented at numerous national and international case conferences.

Dr. Kristie Abston is an assistant professor of management at the University of West Florida where she teaches organizational behavior and human resource management courses.  Her current research interests include employee patronage, experiential learning, organizational commitment, and turnover.